WORLD CUP PODCAST

Edward: ““The World Cup should be an inclusive World Cup. Everybody should feel welcome. Everybody should feel safe and that’s just not the case. The trend is dangerous. It’s not a healthy direction that we’re heading towards." That was a quote by the former Finnish, national team captain, Tim Sparv.“

Adam: “Yeah, and Tim Sparv is not alone in his opinion on this years world cup. Which is why in todays podcast, we’re talking football. More specifically we are talking about what the fuck is going on in qatar. We are bringing up FIFA corruption, migrant workers in qatar, ethics and of course the football itself.”

Edward: “The corruption in Qatar has been just short of blatant. FIFA, the international governing body for football, has been plagued by allegations of corruption surrounding the selection process for hosting the World Cup, and rightly so. In recent years, several high-ranking FIFA officials have been indicted on corruption charges, including former president Sepp Blatter. These officials are accused of accepting bribes in exchange for voting for Qatar to host the prestigious tournament in 2022. In response to the scandal, FIFA has implemented new rules and regulations to try to prevent future instances of corruption. Despite these efforts, many people remain skeptical about the organization's ability to clean up its act and restore its credibility. It seems rather obvious that the way qatar became hosts of the 2022 world cup was not legitimate way possible.”

Adam: “Yeah, and also if we exclude the ways that Qatar became host, there are a lot of problems regarding why Qatar should not be a host like like for example Qatar prior to getting the World Cup in 2022 had no stadiums. 0 football stadiums. So they had to build, I think it was 8 stadiums, in a very short time window which is very expensive and it came with some very bad working conditions.

Edward: “Yeah, and another problem is obviously the fact that Qatar has pretty much no footballing culture you know.Tthey have the money, they can hire migrant workers to build the stadiums for them. They can build facilities, but in the end the people are just not interested in the football itself. Which has become obvious now in the World Cup also because we've seen empty stadiums, a lot of empty seats, which is just not the case usually in a World Cup. The atmosphere in the arenas are just not the same as they usually have been, which is obviously a problem”

Adam: “Yeah, and it's very sad because some international fans don't want to go to Qatar because of the cultural clashes. Like you're not allowed to be homosexual in Qatar and there are a lot of cultural clashes. Also, alcohol is banned at all the stadiums as some sort of last minute rule change. It's not the same atmosphere in the stadiums because many fans don't don't don't really feel the the culture you know.”

Edward: “Yeah, and we've seen that also with the alcohol ban by the way. It was very, very strange, since one of FIFA's main sponsors for the tournament was Budweiser, which is a beer company. So that was very weird. But we've also seen that the English fans who are very they're famous for drinking beer and being loud, but we've just seen them, you know, just not take up as much space and not create the same atmosphere that they usually do so.“

Adam: “They have been very, very quiet. The last problem we're talking about is it's way too warm for football in Qatar, I mean, we're recording this now in december and the World Cup is currently going on. It's very strange it's not the same feeling as in the summer.”

Edward: “Yeah, that's not something we're used to. Everyone’s got school and work and stuff as well.”

Adam: “They had to make a lot of changes to the stadiums for this to work, like it's still too warm in Qatar in December so they have like built-in ACs which is just bringing up the cost of the stadiums as well.”

Adam: “Arguably the biggest problem and talking point of the world cup in qatar so far has been the Qatar's migrant workers. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have been employed in Qatar to help construct the stadiums, roads and other infrastructure needed to host the tournament. Many of these workers have been subject to exploitative labor practices, including long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. The Swedish Television, SVT, report that up to 6500 of the migrant workers even died as a result of this terrible work environment. The Qatari government has promised to improve working conditions and ensure that workers' rights are respected, but there is still much work to be done to ensure that migrant workers are treated fairly and with respect during the 2022 World Cup and not much to back up the validity of these statements.”

Edward: Inevitably all these controversies and conflicts we're just destined to take away focus from the football. And of course, we have also seen that in this World Cup. We've seen a lot of nations wanted to wear one love captain's armbands to show their support and that did not agree with the controversies of the World Cup. But then again, FIFA comes in and they says, “If you actually go ahead and wear these arm bands, we're going to give you a yellow card at the start of the game”, which you know caused many countries to back out. Now we don't know if they would actually do this, that's another point. But you know, it's not a good look for FIFA, and it destroys a little bit.”

Adam: “I also don't think they would have done it, like it's not in the rule book that you can't wear arm bands, but still it's it's too big of a risk for countries to take. So all of the countries in the World Cup actually backed out of wearing these armbands.”

Edward: “Yeah, which is very sad”

Adam: “According to Sports Bible, a Sports News site, Denmark want to leave FIFA, the International Football Association.”

Edward: “That just so shows the severity of the situation when vountries are prepared to go that far to show that they don't agree with what's happening.”

Adam: “This one is also like, will they actually do it, Denmark? I don't think they will”

Edward: “Yeah, but it sends a statement for sure.”

Edward: “We also had you know Denmark who wore their the blanked kits to show that as well. And then after the controversies with the armbands, we saw Germany, they took a quiet protest. They covered their mouths to show that they were being quieted by FIFA. Some people claim that they had too much focus on the human rights, which I I personally think that's ridiculous because people are being disrespected. I don't think it's OK, so obviously you should be allowed to bring light to that.

Adam: “But it isn't a weird thought to have since they as a big nation went out in the group stage.”

Edward: “True, true. To japan as well.”

Adam: “Yeah, so I understand where people are coming from”

Edward: “It's a reasonable thought I guess, but I still think it's a bit ridiculous.”

Adam: “Furthermore, the topic of football in the winter, we're in the middle of the season, so a lot of players are are injured. Normally in the summer we have a break from football before the World Cup, so most players are fit for playing.

Edward: “They have the opportunity to train beforehand”

Adam: “Yeah, but for this world cup so many of key players are injured. For example Senegal have the player Mané and he's very important to their their team and he's one of the best players in the world but he he couldn't participate. Obviously, they couldn't perform as good.

Edward: “We saw that they definitely underperformed. We didn't see any convincing wins and then obviously they went out in the round of 16 to England. Which you know we might have seen something else if Mané was in the squad, but that didn't happen, so yeah. But instead we have smaller nations creating big upsets. We saw Japan knock out Germany. We saw Saudi Arabia beat Argentina, but the most impressive of them all is definitely Morocco who made it all the way to the semifinals, beating Croatia, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. What's even more impressive is that they haven't considered a single goal from an opponent this entire World Cup.

Adam: “Yeah, their their only goal backwards come from their own defender Aguerd, who actually plays for my team, West Ham.”

Adam: “It's a very impressive, impressive stat for sure, and especially taking into account that they they almost have no big names in that squad, like they have Hakimi and Ziyech but apart from that they just have the will to win, you know.

Edward: “Hakimi is also the only regular starter in that backline who's not injured, and they still managed to beat Portugal in a defensive performance as well, which is just really impressive.”

Adam: “It's crazy. They have a very good collective effort in that team. ”

Edward: “And then again we saw Denmark, similar to Germany, focused a lot on the the human rights and the controversies. They were also a big disappointment. I even bet on them to top their group which was really stupid I guess”

Adam: “Yeah, they’re out in the group stage already, it’s pretty sad.”

Edward: “Very sad. France again, they look strong. We have a lot of people that don't like the England squad for some reason, maybe it's because of the fans. France knocked out England in the quarter finals, making sure it's not “coming home” again. Repeating trend.”

Adam: “For sure I agree I really like seeing England lose yeah so it's nice.”

Edward: “Most people certainly do.”

Adam: “I think the the most interesting story this World Cup is is Croatia. They they don't seem that strong on paper, but they're they're able to beat big teams and they go to penalties almost every time they have to feel tired at this point, you know.”

Edward: “Everyone was counting on an Argentina Brazil semifinal, but then there comes Croatia and just knocks them out on penalties. It just felt like even Brazil had counted that as a win beforehand so they weren't ready and we saw them take the consequences for that.”

Adam: “Yeah, and lastly, we have to talk about, in my opinion, the best game this tournament. The quarterfinal between Argentina and Netherlands. 17 yellow cards in that game.”

Edward: “That is so insane. It’s a new record I think as well.”

Adam: “It was so insane to watch.”

Edward: “Last second goal as well.”

Adam: “Yeah. last second goal, people were like hitting each other and bumping around. It was crazy.”

Edward: “I just think the refereeing performance, though it takes away from it a little bit, but it's it was still a crazy game to watch.”

Adam: “Yeah. yeah for sure.”

Edward: “I think that's all we have to talk about today actually. So thank you all for listening and that was the World Cup podcast. “